Cincinnati City v. Morgan

70 U.S. 275 (1865) 3 Wall. 275

CINCINNATI CITY
v.
MORGAN.

Supreme Court of United States.

Mr. Stanbery, for the city.

Messrs. Coffin, Evarts, and T.G. Mitchell, contra.

Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court.

There is no doubt but that every part of this transaction was within the competency of the City Council on the one side, and the railroad company on the other, as derived from the act of the legislature of Ohio, already referred to, of the 20th March, 1850, and was valid and binding upon both the parties. The seventh section of this act confers the authority in express terms. The City Council is authorized to contract with the railroad company, to secure, by mortgages, transfers, or hypothecations of their stock, or by such other liens or securities, real or personal, as may be mutually agreed upon, for the payment of the amount of the principal of the bonds as they become due, and for the reimbursement of any interest that might be paid by the city.

The question in the case is, what are the rights acquired by the city, on the one hand, and obligations assumed by the railroad company, on the other, by this arrangement?

If we look simply to the contract between the parties, it is impossible to entertain any doubt about them. The city holds $1,000,000 in the stock of the company, as a security for the loan of $600,000 in city bonds, with a power of sale of the stock upon the terms mentioned. The whole transaction consists in a loan of bonds and a pledge of stock.

It is argued, however, that this seventh section of the act of 1850 impresses upon the transaction an effect and operation over and beyond the mere rights and obligations arising out of the contract; that the section transmutes the pledge of stock into a lien or mortgage upon the road and fixtures of the company, and makes it not only a charge upon them, but a charge prior in date to the second, and even the first mortgage; that, in effect, the pledge overrides all liens or incumbrances upon the road and fixtures, whether prior or subsequent in time, and postpones them to this alleged statute security of the loan of the city bonds. Certainly a statute that can have such a peculiar and strikingly inequitable effect and operation, should be very explicit and positive, in order to obtain the assent of a court of law or equity.

The lien is supposed to be given by the latter clause of the section, which is, in substance, as follows:

"And for the further purpose of securing said city against all loss or losses which the same may suffer, whether by payment of the principal or interest, or any damages arising therefrom, that the above liens, mortgages, or other securities shall have priority or precedence of all claims or obligations subsequently contracted by such company, and over other liens, securities, or mortgages which were not duly entered into between said company and other persons, before the respective issues and loans."

It will be remembered that the first clause in the section gave to the City Council an option as to the security they might take for the advance of the bonds. They might take mortgages, or hypothecations of stock of the company, or such other lien or security, real or personal, as the parties should mutually agree to between themselves. The liens and securities, therefore, real or personal, that the City Council might require, depended upon their own views of what would be best for all the parties interested in the enterprise of building the road. They could have exacted a mortgage upon the road or fixtures, or both, or be satisfied with personal security, such as the hypothecation of stock. They did, at first, decide in favor of a mortgage on the road, but soon afterwards changed their opinion in favor of the hypothecation of stock — exacting a $1,000,000 of stock for the $600,000 in their bonds. Now, "the above-described liens, mortgages, and securities," referred to in the subsequent clause of the section, and to which priority and precedence are given over claims and obligations subsequently entered into, is to be taken distributively; that is, if the City Council should stipulate for a lien by way of mortgage, upon the road, or upon personal property belonging to the company, or which might be acquired in the future, such liens or mortgages should have priority and precedence over claims and obligations subsequently contracted by the company.

The only answer to this view is, that it makes the clause a work of supererogation, as this would be the legal effect of the lien itself. That is true. The clause would be but declaratory of the law as it stood. This, however, is not a strange circumstance in legislation. A large portion of the modern codes is but declaratory of the common law as expounded by the courts. We prefer this interpretation to the one that gives a lien against the stipulations of the parties, and where both were free to enter into them as authorized by a previous clause of the same section. Under this liberty, given to the City Council and the company, the former rejected the lien upon the road by mortgage, preferring the personal security by a pledge or hypothecation of the stock.

The first clause of this section would be quite as idle and absurd a piece of legislation, which conferred upon the parties the authority of agreeing upon their own terms as to the nature and character of the security for the loans, as the latter, if, by the latter clause, whatever might be the security agreed upon, it must operate as a mortgage on the road, and have precedence over all others. Why give this choice of securities, if this would be the result? There was no necessity to stipulate for a mortgage on the road, if the statute gave the lien without it; nor propriety or sense in the choice between a mortgage and the pledge of stock, if a lien on the road followed either security.

The thirteenth section of the general law incorporating railroads, referred to as helping out this lien, we think, received its proper answer in the court below, as not applicable to this company; and the same in respect to a clause in the act of February 10, 1851, incorporating the Cincinnati Western Railroad Company.

We think the decree of the court below, against the claim of the city, was right, and should be

AFFIRMED.